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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27698255">Soaring Ever Higher</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/songbvrd/pseuds/songbvrd'>songbvrd</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Finale Fix-It Fics! [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Castiel POV, Fix It Fic, M/M, No Proofreading We Die Like Men, carry on, destiel fluff basically</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 03:33:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,605</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27698255</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/songbvrd/pseuds/songbvrd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel never expected to see Dean again. But once Jack pulls him out of the Empty, he has to deal with the consequences of his confession.</p>
<p>Another canon compliant fix it fic from Castiel's perspective!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Finale Fix-It Fics! [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025170</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>175</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Soaring Ever Higher</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Day whatever of me still hating the finale and finding ways to make it better!</p>
<p>I hope you enjoy and please feel free to leave any/all feedback! This is also my first time writing Cas POV so I hope it's okay!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When he woke up, Castiel immediately looked around, trying to find someone, anyone, that was familiar. Instead, it was only black, and he remembered what he’d done. What he’d said.</p>
<p>‘I love you.’ </p>
<p>Right. Castiel had made the decision to save Dean, to give absolutely everything up and to be totally honest. He didn’t regret it in any capacity, he had made the decision because Dean was worth it to him. </p>
<p>Because for all the discussion of Team Free Will, it was Cas’ free will that changed things. It was his willfully defiant love of Dean Winchester that had changed things, and he knew it. He hadn’t done what he was told. Again and again, Heaven had tried to force him to choose between Dean and them. Between Dean and the world, and honestly, it had never been that hard of a choice. </p>
<p>There were other factors, the brainwashing, thousands of years worth of believing he wasn’t capable of such feelings, but ultimately, it always came back to the same point.</p>
<p>He couldn’t ever look Dean Winchester in the eye and betray him. They had made mistakes. All of them. But when it came down to it, no matter how Dean felt about him, Cas knew that protecting Dean Winchester had been his priority really ever since he had first met him. Or first put him back together again, anyway. </p>
<p>He could vividly recall how confused he had been by the human once. Humans were flawed and fallible and angry and Dean Winchester was too. Yet, Castiel had seen him then. He had seen him and he had been curious about him, because for all the anger and violence and destruction, there had been so much love. So much loyalty. So much damage and self-hatred and Castiel realised he had never really understood humanity at all.</p>
<p>From that point on, he had been curious, if nothing else. </p>
<p>He had tried hard to understand it. He had always imagined an entitlement in humanity. And he saw it in some. But the realisation that Dean didn’t think he deserved salvation or redemption, when he was the Righteous Man that needed to be saved gave Castiel pause. </p>
<p>He found himself trying to prove to the human that he did deserve to be saved. At first, he did it out of faith. If his father believed that this man deserved to be saved, then he did. And Castiel would make sure that His will was done, that Dean was safe and the gospels of Winchester -- though Castiel knew nothing about the course that would take -- would be written out.</p>
<p>Over time though, the relationship took form. Switched and changed before Castiel’s eyes. He wasn’t sure at what point he had come to actually care about Dean, or at what point that ‘care’ had turned into something else entirely, something Cas didn’t even know he was capable of feeling. He wasn’t sure at what point the protectiveness in the name of his faith because the protectiveness in the name of Dean himself. He wasn’t sure at one point he began to care about Dean just for the sake of caring. </p>
<p>The process of coming to terms with that was long and winding. It took him a long time to understand the depth of his feelings. To understand why it upset him to see Dean with other people. To understand why he would forgo everything he’d ever known for a man who oftentimes seemed not to care even half as much for him. </p>
<p>Their relationship had undergone so many sharp changes and contrasts, times where they were best friends or times where they were gunning for each other. In truth, a part of Castiel had tried to resist it so many times. He’d tried to remind himself of who he was. He was an angel. A cosmic, celestial being, who had lived a thousand lifetimes more than this one man could ever imagine. He told himself, and Dean, that he didn’t serve him and that he never would. </p>
<p>But the truth was, when push came to shove, and when the whole world was on the line, his choices always favoured the eldest Winchester.</p>
<p>He came to care about Sam too, and others in their group, but never in the same way. At first, he attributed that to his and Dean’s bond. He attributed that to the fact that he had pulled Dean out of Hell and that he and Sam just didn’t have the same basis to their relationship. </p>
<p>But that relationship grew too, and Castiel did come to accept Sam as a kind of a family member. His own family was about as dysfunctional as one could be.</p>
<p>Of course, he never realised that until he knew them. He never saw the desire for freedom or for free will until he saw it in them. These human men who were so tiny in the scheme of things, and yet who fought so hard not only for each other, but for the world at large.</p>
<p>Castiel realised he ached for something like that too. Someone who loved him. Someone who would do anything for him. Not a brother, necessarily, but just… someone. He realised he was lonely, and that realisation never really went away.</p>
<p>He tried, multiple times, to break himself away from Dean Winchester. To find something else, someone else to love as much, but he always failed. He always returned. Even in the moments when he told himself he could never, ever go back, he always managed to. He always found some reason to have to go back, some reason he had to find a way to save him or to fight by his side. He always found his way back to that bunker, even when Dean asked him to leave.</p>
<p>The last time he had tried to leave, he really thought that would be the end. He thought often about how after everything, after giving up any home or life he’d ever known, again and again for him, Dean had turned his back on him. Hadn’t even been able to look him in the eye. He knew Dean was struggling. With losing Jack, with losing his sense of identity and free will, his hope for his future, but Castiel realised he couldn’t sit around and wait for Dean to realise that he had been here forever. That he had been by his side and that he had fought his entire human-adjacent life to try to save him. </p>
<p>For as much as Dean had lost in learning about his free will, Castiel had lost at least as much. For millennia, before Sam and Dean were even a flicker of consciousness in a wide, open cosmos, Castiel had served his Father. He had served Heaven and God and Humanity as he was supposed to. He had done his job, again and again. Done the right thing. Over time, after meeting them, he had begun to lose his faith in his Father. He had begun to question everything, to change his perspective and to lose his faith long before he had found out just how trapped and controlled humanity and even Heaven was. But finding out about Chuck’s writing, about his plan, about the universes upon universes he built up just to torture Sam and Dean. It was one thing to lose his faith believing his Father was an absentee. It was a completely different thing to realise that his father had manipulated all of them since the beginning of time. That they were a game to him, a joke. A source of amusement. To find out that anything he had faith in, even his own Father, wasn’t real. He had tried to keep the faith in Dean and in humanity, but even that had been hard, when Dean had turned on him too.</p>
<p>But then they had needed his help and Castiel had gone back. He had tried to save him, again. Tried to help, again. He told himself he was doing it for Jack, for the world, and he was. But a part of him knew that when push came to shove, he couldn’t just… forget. He would never really be able to turn his back on Dean. Not when it mattered. Not when it was all on the line like this.</p>
<p>Then he heard Dean’s prayer. He had heard the emotion in his voice, he heard the attempts to make it right. He heard the way Dean spoke about himself, about the anger he couldn’t control, about how overwhelmed he was, and it made sense more to Cas. Because Dean wasn’t just upset, he was falling apart at the seams. The very sense of who he was had been torn apart and Dean wasn’t coping.</p>
<p>He had accepted the apology because, as painful as it had been, he had to. He was irreparably bound to the Winchesters in a way he wasn’t sure he could ever make his peace with. </p>
<p>But the thing was, for as long as Castiel had been waiting for some clarity on what his true happiness was, some part of him always knew.</p>
<p>Some part of him had almost thought it was funny when the Empty had told him it would come for him when he was truly happy. Because if his happiness was loving Dean, being with Dean, he would never, ever have that. It was as sad as it was funny, that Castiel thought he could never be taken because he would never be truly happy.</p>
<p>Really, Cas hadn’t even considered that just saying could be enough until he had to. He hadn’t considered that his true happiness wasn’t having Dean, or even having Dean love him, it was in making sure that Dean knew he was loved.</p>
<p>This fragile, broken, angry human who was so perfect in Castiel’s eyes. He was the best in humanity, the single most selfless person Castiel had ever met. He was fairly certain there wasn’t anyone less selfless to be met. It wasn’t his own sense of love or acceptance that had mattered, really. It was Dean’s. </p>
<p>Dean, who had spent his entire short, painful life looking out for everyone except himself. Who had spent his life fighting for free will only to find out he had never had it to begin with. </p>
<p>He just wanted Dean to know that despite all the anger, despite all the pain and blood and violence and suffering and every horrible thing he knew Dean thought about himself, he was loved. He wasn’t just the ‘Righteous Man’ or his father’s soldier or some character created to fulfil Chuck. He was a fully realised human being, and one who had made a heartless Angel of the Lord fall in love. For the very first and only time. </p>
<p>He didn’t ever want or need Dean to say it back. No part of him expected to be loved in return. Castiel wasn’t human, and he knew he wasn’t what Dean wanted. Dean had told him in so many words, had called him a brother. True that it had been years before, but still. Castiel wasn’t naive, not anymore anyway. </p>
<p>He had been told before by others too. Michael had told him, from inside Dean’s head, that he tolerated him. He had been told so many times and by so many people that he was nowhere near as important to them as they were to him. He knew it was true. It had been clear so many times, and never more so than after Jack’s death at Chuck’s hands. He understood that his value to them was far different than their value to him.</p>
<p>Because as badly as Castiel did want to be loved, he had never heard those words in his life. Not towards him.</p>
<p>He knew who he was, and he knew what he was supposed to be, and if all he had to contribute was making Dean Winchester feel loved, keeping him safe one last time… Then so be it.</p>
<p>Still, being awake in the Empty wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t exactly what Castiel thought he would be doing. He had hoped for sleep. He knew the Empty wanted to return to sleep, and he hoped he would get to go along with that. That things could be quiet. That he could forget how vulnerable he had made himself, and how, as happy as he was to finally give Dean all that love he had inside of him, he was also extremely lonely.</p>
<p>He didn’t want to return to the taunting.</p>
<p>‘I know what you love. There’s nothing for you out there.’ </p>
<p>The Empty had been right, of course, but that didn’t do much to help Cas. It only served to reinforce the already aching knowledge that it never would be reciprocated. That it couldn’t be. Objectively, Castiel could be fine with that. But he seemed to become more human every day in his emotions, and those emotions included everything from loneliness to deep, penetrating insecurity.</p>
<p>He didn’t know how long he was there, awake but with no intent to leave, before it happened. All he knew was that he just lay there. He just lay there staring into the nothingness, accepting that this was it now. Maybe eventually, when people stopped thinking of him, or praying to him, he would return to sleep. Maybe that would be it, and maybe that could be fine. </p>
<p>But then, there was Jack.</p>
<p>Standing in front of him in the same yellow jacket he often wore, with one hand held up at his side and a friendly hello. </p>
<p>“Jack…” Cas got to his feet, fear pulsing through him. “Tell me you’re not…” </p>
<p>“Dead? I’m not.” Jack filled in quickly, “No, I’m… I’m something else now.” His eyes glowed a colour they hadn’t before, they were still gold, but different, Cas thought. Different.</p>
<p>Maybe he could just sense it, the change in Jack. In how he held himself. In his energy.</p>
<p>“You’re God.” Cas filled in, his eyes wide and fixed on his son. </p>
<p>There was little in the universe that Castiel loved more than Jack. He had done everything he could to protect the boy, to keep him safe and stable and alright. He would have been willing to give up anything for him, which was why he had made the deal with the Empty to begin with. </p>
<p>It was strange, Cas realised, to know you had raised God. He had no idea what that meant for him, or for the Winchesters, but he was too busy trying to wrap his head around this change.</p>
<p>“Yes.” Jack told him, and Cas thought how he sounded, for the most part, like himself. Nothing like Castiel himself had been when he had declared himself God. But he hoped that he -- along with Sam and Dean -- had raised Jack better, and he already felt like he could see it. See how Jack would be what this world, what humanity, needed.</p>
<p>“Why are you here?” Cas asked. Obviously there was an answer he might want, but ultimately, it would be up to Jack. Whatever Jack said, Castiel would respect that. It was a weird power shift, he realised, but it didn’t matter. </p>
<p>“To raise you.” Jack’s brows furrowed slightly, as though that were obvious. “I need your help.” </p>
<p>Castiel still didn’t fully understand how Jack had swung this. He supposed he had all the power now, that what he said went. But maybe it was really just that the Empty wanted to sleep, and that Castiel had a habit of waking it. Either way, Castiel was allowed to leave, and the Empty was returned to sleep, per Jack’s promise. </p>
<p>Jack told him about how he was done interfering, but that he needed Jack’s help to fix Heaven. To fix what Chuck and Lucifer and the rest had broken. Castiel wondered if maybe that was at least partly an excuse. If Jack just felt he owed Castiel, knowing that the deal he had made was for him. To keep him safe.</p>
<p>Castiel learned about how Jack had become a vacuum. How Michael and Lucifer’s power had become a part of him. How every bit of power Chuck expended hurting the Winchesters had gone to him. He explained how they had left him alone there, to age and rot as Chuck had left the rest of humanity to do. He explained how Chuck had attempted to bait Sam or Dean into killing him, into finishing the story at least somewhat in his image, and how they had refused. </p>
<p>“Dean didn’t kill him…?” Castiel suspected he was giving something away with this question, but then, Castiel didn’t actually know what Dean had told him. Maybe Jack knew already. Maybe he wouldn’t read anything into the question at all. After all, in the past, Dean was usually the one to take charge in such a way. He never wanted the burden of doing something so hard to be on Sam or Cas or Jack, he would rather take all that burden and blame and guilt on himself. That was something Chuck had known since the very beginning. </p>
<p>“No.” Jack answered with a sort of a robotic shrug. Castiel wondered if he used to look like that, when he first came to Earth. Sort of otherworldly and unnatural. He was sure he did. Even Jack had begun to grow out of it to an extent. “Chuck said he was the ultimate killer. Dean said Chuck was wrong about him.”</p>
<p>Castiel felt like he might’ve actually begun to glow with pride. If Dean had internalised what he said, if he believed on any level that he was the good man Cas thought he was and not a monster, then Cas had done his job. Dean was good, and loving and selfless. He wasn’t always the best with his feelings, but he was good. He deserved to know that. He deserved to feel like he was worth saving. </p>
<p>When they were back in the monotone, blindingly bright room Cas had come to associate with only bad things, he began to wonder what exactly Jack wanted his help in fixing.</p>
<p>“Heaven.” Jack supplied. “Chuck… didn’t believe in free will. He was a writer, and he wanted to dictate a story. Even in death, his characters were in a prison. Trapped in their own lives. I don’t want that.”</p>
<p>For as angry as he had been, for as betrayed as he had felt, for as rocky as their relationships had been, Castiel wanted to see humanity happy. He wanted to see the Winchesters happy. He wanted to see Dean happy. Dean would live another forty years, maybe more. He would be happy. He could get married and have children. He could have a dog and a picket fence and a real life. A garage to keep his dog in. He could find a way to have more. To be better. He could find a way to be whole. Castiel hoped that maybe, just maybe, he had helped Dean to understand that he deserved that future.</p>
<p>Jack told him about how Dean and Sam were safe. How Dean had adopted a dog and called it Miracle. About how Dean was applying for a job and they were living safely in their homes. About how they were starting over. </p>
<p>Truly, Castiel couldn’t have been happier. Even if some selfish part of him still wanted a love he couldn’t have, he wanted far more for Dean to have the love he wanted. The life he deserved.</p>
<p>So he and Jack went to work.</p>
<p>He could pretend that he hadn’t had Dean in mind when he took to trying to build and create Heaven. He would be lying. It wasn’t that it was for him, specifically. It was for a lot of people. It was just that it was Dean who had allowed him to understand what true peace was.</p>
<p>It was Freedom. It was the things you loved. It was a home and a place to see your family again. That was what it always should have been. It should have been home, a place to find yourself and your love and your peace.</p>
<p>So when he created a place that was open, a place where you could roam and build and live, essentially a version of Earth without any of the pain or the suffering, he thought about Dean. How one day, after everything else, he would finally be able to lay his head down and find peace. He tried to build what he imagined would be peace for him.</p>
<p>He tried to imagine what Dean would want, and he found himself building a beach, the place that Dean said he had always wanted to holiday with. He tried to build in a place where his family could be close. He gave the Harvelles back their Roadhouse, gave John and Mary back the family home they had never gotten to raise their kids in (though truthfully, Castiel didn’t have many positive thoughts about John Winchester). He gave Kevin and his Mom a place, Kelly, even Ketsch. All the people that he hoped the Winchesters would get to see again one day.</p>
<p>He gave them a home, and he hoped that that would be enough. That one day, the Winchesters could happily call this a home too. </p>
<p>It had barely been a week when Jack told him. </p>
<p>Dean Winchester was dead.</p>
<p>Cas stood and he watched and he begged Jack to let him go, to let him save Dean Winchester one last time.</p>
<p>“No, Castiel.” Jack said quietly, “I want to save him too, but we have to right this. We have to fix this world, put the balance back. We can’t be Chuck. If it’s Dean’s time…” </p>
<p>Cas could feel the emotion slipping into his voice even when he answered, “It’s not his time, he was supposed to have a life, Jack.”</p>
<p>When Jack looked at him again, he had tears in his eyes, “I know, Cas. I wanted that for him too, I really did.” </p>
<p>“Then let me go,” Cas pleaded, and Jack shook his head.</p>
<p>“We can’t, Castiel. He will have his family again here. His friends, his home, his car. We’ve done what we can. We can’t bring people back. We can’t keep upsetting the order of things.”</p>
<p>And so Castiel accepted it, because he had no other choice. But somehow, mourning Dean was worse than dealing with his own death. Because Dean was supposed to live. Dean was supposed to finally be free.</p>
<p>Dean had spent his entire life fighting for his freedom and for the freedom of his family and then, all at once, he had lost it. Dean had deserved so much more, had deserved so much better, and it broke Castiel’s heart. </p>
<p>The way he had died too. Cas had been able to see it. The rebar. The way he had spent his last moments trying to comfort someone else. It was so very Dean Winchester that it stung. Of course, even his last moments, his last moment of freedom, couldn’t really be about him. How could they be? Aside from the prison Chuck and his father and Michael had put on him, Dean was also in one of his own design. He would never, ever let himself be happy unless Sam was. He would never let himself be mad or upset about his own horrible, pointless, violent death, because he would be focusing on Sam. Trying to save Sam, trying to make Sam happy. </p>
<p>He deserved to be mad. He deserved to be sad. He deserved to be terrified. And he was. Castiel could see it in his eyes. Maybe he wouldn’t admit it, but he was terrified. Terrified and alone in that moment, because he could never really be honest about it.</p>
<p>Cas wanted to be there. He wanted to be there when Dean got to Heaven, to be able to hug him and to tell him he was sorry and that he designed this for him. That he wanted him to have a life. That it wasn’t fair and he knew it wasn’t fair and he wished he could’ve saved him just one more time.</p>
<p>But the truth was that Cas had no idea if Dean wanted him there. </p>
<p>He had no idea whether he’d made things weird, ruined the relationship irreparably. He had no idea whether Dean still thought of him as a problem, or whether they were even anything anymore. </p>
<p>So he stayed clear. He stayed clear of Dean’s Heaven, stayed with Jack or made his way around to different places. He tried to make sure people were happy, that they had homes. He just sat and enjoyed nature, spent time with the bees they’d created in this place. He spent time with the dogs and amongst the trees.</p>
<p>At some point, Jack asked him whether he was going to go to see Dean and Castiel just shrugged.</p>
<p>“He’d want to see you.” Jack told him. He gave Castiel a pointed look and Cas just sighed. He supposed being God probably had some perk of knowledge, that he probably knew what had happened. Or maybe he was just observant. Everyone else, barring Dean himself, had already realised that Castiel was in love with him. </p>
<p>“I don’t know if that’s true.” They rarely exchanged more words than needed when it came to issues like this, so Cas knew that Jack wouldn’t push him. After all, they had an eternity to deal with this.</p>
<p>It felt like a lot of time passed before something happened. He kept an eye on Dean, as was his way, the Angel watching over him since he had first met him. </p>
<p>But then he heard that familiar voice in his ear, and it felt like his heart stopped. </p>
<p>‘Heya, Cas.’ Castiel stopped dead in his tracks from where he was, walking through a part of the new office of Heaven that Jack had created. ‘I uh, don’t know if you can still hear me from up here or not, but… Bobby told me you helped Cas, so I figure… you must be topside. Or… above topside, I guess.’</p>
<p>Well, well, well, Cas thought to himself, if it wasn’t the consequences to his own actions knocking on the door. Consequences he had truly never thought he would have to face. The beauty of his final confession was that it was final. He never had to deal with it, never had to see Dean let him down gently, never had to listen to the hunter tell him that this changed everything. He never had to get rejected by the first and only man Castiel had ever or would ever love. </p>
<p>‘I, uh, don’t know if you wanna see me or not,’ Dean’s voice sounded as gruff as ever, more so maybe, and Castiel thought he could hear nervousness in his voice. Maybe seeing Cas now made him uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry I did such a shitty job of not dyin’ just after you sacrificed yourself for me, but uh… I think we should talk. If… y’know, if you want to. Just uh… y’know. Drop in. Fly in. Whatever.’ He heard Dean clear his throat and Castiel couldn’t help but smile. Though fear seemed to fill him up inside, there was something so endearing about listening to Dean struggle to find words to summon him, even after all this time.</p>
<p>Even after knowing that Castiel was in love with him.</p>
<p>Castiel had to stop and centre himself. He had to stop to think. In thousands upon thousands of years of life, Castiel had never been in love before Dean. He had, for a time, thought he cared about Meg in the same way. Or April, maybe. He realised now he had been trying, fruitlessly, to fill the void that Dean had left in his life. The aching want he knew he could never meet. </p>
<p>And while he did truly care about Meg, he realised now it had never been the same type of care. That it probably never would be, because Castiel didn’t think he was capable of loving anyone more than he loved Dean. Dean wasn’t just a human he’d fallen for, he was it for Castiel. There never could be more. </p>
<p>He wasn’t ready to face what he’d said. He wasn’t ready to face the pity or rejection in Dean’s eyes. He wasn’t ready to live with knowing that it really was over. That his hope really was gone. Any tiny sliver of hope in his mind that Dean might love him back would be shut down forever.</p>
<p>Still, everything had to come to an end at some point. At least he would see him one more time.</p>
<p>“Hello, Dean.” Dean was standing beside his car, overlooking the beach, overlooking the water. So he had found what Castiel had built for him. He hoped he enjoyed it.</p>
<p>“Heya, Cas. You uh, get my message…?” </p>
<p>“Yes, Dean. That’s why I’m here.” He stood far back, farther back than he would’ve in the early days of knowing Dean, back when he didn’t understand personal space the same way he did now. Back when he wasn’t afraid of seeing Dean’s green eyes and faint freckles up close, of seeing that rejection in his eyes up close.</p>
<p>“I’m uh… not sure what to say,” Dean said with an awkward chuckle.</p>
<p>So Cas spoke. “Rebar? Really?” He asked with a slow frown, “I left you alone for one week and you…” It would be easier to joke, or to be mad, but really, he just felt heartbroken. Dean didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve any of this. “You should’ve had a life. A family. A wife. Kids.” </p>
<p>Dean blinked, nodding slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, I deserved to have a life. A life with a family. With a dog and a job. With, uh, my partner and son.”</p>
<p>Castiel just stared at him for a moment, trying to make sense of the statement. “Yes, if that was what you wanted then--”</p>
<p>“Cas, what I’m trying to say is--”</p>
<p>“You don’t have to,” Cas cut in, a frown on his face, afraid to hear it. Afraid of what it would mean to hear it. Afraid of how it would break his heart. “You don’t have to say anything, it’s… it’s fine.”</p>
<p>“No, but I--”</p>
<p>“Dean, please, I’m not expecting--” </p>
<p>“Cas, shut the hell up for one second, okay?” Dean cut in, and Cas fell silent. “What I’m trying to say is… Oh, fuck it.” </p>
<p>Cas barely had time to process what was happening or what Dean was saying when Dean’s hands were on his face and his lips were against his and Cas had no idea how he was meant to breathe because his heart was too busy trying to beat all the way out of its chest and if he wasn’t convinced before that this was really Heaven, he was now.</p>
<p>Because Dean’s lips were surprisingly soft, and his skin seemed to shiver where he felt Dean’s hands on his face. How the hell had he not just done this before? Twelve years of sneaking glances at Dean, twelve years of watching him. Twelve years of wishing and hoping and he wondered if he actually was still in the Empty and was just dreaming somehow.</p>
<p>His own hands found their way under Dean’s jacket, resting on his hips, only the t-shirt between him and Dean’s skin. He gripped onto Dean tightly, pulled him closer. </p>
<p>After a few moments of Castiel feeling totally dizzy in love and stuck in the moment, he found himself blinking his eyes back open, coming back to reality. Everything seemed to bright for a moment, too stark. </p>
<p>God, he just wanted to stay like this. He just wanted to lean into this moment for the rest of however long his life was. </p>
<p>“Dean, you-- you don’t have to--”</p>
<p>“I love you, Cas.” </p>
<p>“What?” </p>
<p>Castiel’s voice sounded shocked, higher than usual. He had no real idea how he was supposed to feel about any of it. He wanted this, obviously. He’d wanted this for a long time, for over a decade, but it just didn’t feel real. It just couldn’t feel real. Dean couldn’t possibly love him back. After all this time… After everything. </p>
<p>“I… Man, this is hard for me to say. I love you. I’m… in love with you.” Dean’s eyes were wide open, and Cas was sure that exact shade of green would be burned into his brain forever. But he was being sincere, Cas couldn’t ignore that, and he felt overcome with emotion. He wondered, somewhere in the back of his mind, if this was how overwhelmed Dean had felt when Cas had confessed in the first place. </p>
<p>“I’m in love with you too.” Castiel heard his own voice say, but it felt detached. Not because it wasn’t true, it absolutely was true, but because he still felt like he was floating in some bubble. Like this couldn’t really be real.</p>
<p>“I know,” Dean said with a chuckle. “Want to… want to sit on the beach for a while?”</p>
<p>Castiel nodded slowly, and he nearly jumped when Dean’s hand slid into his, pulling him off towards the sand and towards the water.</p>
<p>Dean had said peace looked like their family, sitting on the beach, finally relaxing, nothing to hunt, just freedom. Sam wasn’t here yet, and Jack had things he had to do in Heaven, but Castiel figured this was as good a place to wait as any for the day they would all be together again.</p>
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